MONTPELIER - Vermont is joining 14 other states and cities in calling for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to adopt proposed new rules calling for big cuts in pollution from vehicles by 2017.

The standards would cut smog-producing emissions from vehicles by 80 percent and soot by 70 percent.

Attorney General William Sorrell says the so-called Tier 3 standards will cut air pollution emissions in an amount equivalent to taking 33 million of today's vehicles off the road.